Best partners? (probably spoilers)

[BONK]

So if I am right, you cant upgrade skills of those whos souls you dont have. Any suggestions and opinions for chars whos skill tree you dont need but they on their own would be useful as partners?

[Leonardo Trapovich]

Abella is good on her own - she gets short circuit and wrench toss as a party npc so it's good enough. Daan has a useful soul but is also useful in the party. Never got marcoh and o'saa so i dunno bout them.
Marina is bad on his own, the journalist ♥♥♥♥♥ is a journo and olivia is useless but has hp regen.

[Nukevich]

black kalev and ghoul

[neo2157]

Originally posted by Leonardo Trapovich:

Abella is good on her own - she gets short circuit and wrench toss as a party npc so it's good enough. Daan has a useful soul but is also useful in the party. Never got marcoh and o'saa so i dunno bout them.
Marina is bad on his own, the journalist ♥♥♥♥♥ is a journo and olivia is useless but has hp regen.

Marina on their own is useful since you can use them to give state boosts to the rest of your party for basically free, Olivia on the surface is useless but that free HP regen basically turns her into a free party member dureing daytime as food and mind are generally much easier to manage then HP is, just give her all the best armor and carve all-mer on her face and she's a tank.

[DefiantSentryV]

Karin comes with lockpicking and Abella has short circuit, so they are both very useful for getting around.
Abella's wrench toss is useful for stuns.
Daan has analyze and can sacrifice limbs to revive a fallen party member during fights.
O'saa has Hurting if you need a source of otherworldly damage.
Marcoh is a great damage dealer.
Marina's engrave is useful for some permanent stat buffs, however I didn't get much use out of her as a party member otherwise.
Olivia has the passive heal but not much else going on.
Levi's addiction makes him a tough prospect for general use, as the withdrawal debuff is pretty severe. However if you have heroin for him and know you're about to go into a tough encounter, he can be useful in boss fights.
Black Kalev and ghouls cannot be controlled but are handy to have as meatshields. Also they don't count as contestants...

[neo2157]

Originally posted by DefiantSentryV:

Karin comes with lockpicking and Abella has short circuit, so they are both very useful for getting around.
Abella's wrench toss is useful for stuns.
Daan has analyze and can sacrifice limbs to revive a fallen party member during fights.
O'saa has Hurting if you need a source of otherworldly damage.
Marcoh is a great damage dealer.
Marina's engrave is useful for some permanent stat buffs, however I didn't get much use out of her as a party member otherwise.
Olivia has the passive heal but not much else going on.
Levi's addiction makes him a tough prospect for general use, as the withdrawal debuff is pretty severe. However if you have heroin for him and know you're about to go into a tough encounter, he can be useful in boss fights.
Black Kalev and ghouls cannot be controlled but are handy to have as meatshields. Also they don't count as contestants...

Thats what Black Kalev wants you to think, he's just waiting to pull a griffith on ya.

[DefiantSentryV]

Originally posted by neo2157:

Thats what Black Kalev wants you to think, he's just waiting to pull a griffith on ya.

I have a healthy respect for Black Kalev. He may be squishy and quick to die, but I've seen him pull off enough clutch headshots with Rampage to know better than to fully discount him.

[peep]

Daan and Karin are must haves for me. Daan also is quite strong.

[y0rch1]

Originally posted by TheGun:

So if I am right, you cant upgrade skills of those whos souls you dont have. Any suggestions and opinions for chars whos skill tree you dont need but they on their own would be useful as partners?

If talking overall, Abella and Marina have the best utility and come early on (marisa a bit late, but night 1 is still reasonably early), levi also comes early on and lets you dump your drugs on boss fights. However those three might have the most valuable souls on the game in general, so you might want to kill them once you get other teammates.

Now If you want the best late game options, Daan, Karin and olivia skill trees aren't that useful once you reach it. That also implies that you are not playing as one of those 3. If you are not planning to play as a mage o'saa is also a decent teammate, if you DO plan to play as a pure mage then marcoh skills are not that great for you so he is a good party member, but he comes only on night 2.

[Perfect_SpOOn]

Thank you for the tips, I have recruited Levi in the Orphanage on day 2, wonder what exact debuff the heroin addiction carries?
(P.S. I defeated a Levi-looking monster in the sewer thought Levi was dead, interestingly, I recruited Levi in the Orphanage afterwards...)

[Leonardo Trapovich]

Originally posted by Perfect_SpOOn:

Thank you for the tips, I have recruited Levi in the Orphanage on day 2, wonder what exact debuff the heroin addiction carries?
(P.S. I defeated a Levi-looking monster in the sewer thought Levi was dead, interestingly, I recruited Levi in the Orphanage afterwards...)

Heroin slashes all stats by half.
And the levi monster for now just gives you free head(hehe) of a contestant

[BONK]

Originally posted by Leonardo Trapovich:

Originally posted by Perfect_SpOOn:

Thank you for the tips, I have recruited Levi in the Orphanage on day 2, wonder what exact debuff the heroin addiction carries?
(P.S. I defeated a Levi-looking monster in the sewer thought Levi was dead, interestingly, I recruited Levi in the Orphanage afterwards...)

Heroin slashes all stats by half.
And the levi monster for now just gives you free head(hehe) of a contestant

what if dev add an option to trick the festival with these heads..? dang, there's so many ways

[Leonardo Trapovich]

Originally posted by TheGun:

what if dev add an option to trick the festival with these heads..? dang, there's so many ways

That's my theory about doppelgangers - that it's a test of a future feature. Like killing them to hide life of other participants, or killing the participants in order to 'resurrect' them using those doubles. The festival might get confused and you'll enter the tower with a full party

[peep]

That was my thought too. The dopplegangers are placeholders for an ending where you can get everyone to escape/live.